While I am loving the iPod connection in my new car, I was surprised to see that the iPod Nano that I'm using is not charging while connected.
According to the manual, the iPod should charge.
Has anyone else had this issue?

 

Yes it should charge. It looks like that you are using a new iPod and Apple changed the pinouts on the connector (?!). The ultimate solution is for PAG to supply a different cable. Another solution is to use an adaptor that some 3rd party sells. See this THREAD for a discussion of this issue.

 

That's exactly the problem. THANKS.

 

I have seen a similar problem on other cars in addition to Porsche. My wife just got a 2009 Mercedes C350 and it also has the cannot-charge problem.

I forgot the technical details... it seemed something about Apple changing the charge interface on its new iPod/iPhone models.

I bought the following adapter and tried it on my wife's C350. It worked like a charm. Give it a try.

With best regards,

http://www.scosche.com/products/productID/1667

 

Older generation i-pods work fine. It's just the newer ones that will not charge because of the lack of firewire pins. Apple dropped the ball and everyone else was left holding the bag!

 

Thanks.
I ordered a similar device (looks identical including dimensions!). The scosche is back ordered.

 

PCNA has been aware of this issue since the launch cars debut.

Call 1-800-PORSCHE and express you dissatisfaction !!!!
Not that a fix will come right away, but they will be on notice of your dissatisfaction!!!

Perhaps someday they (or Harmon Becker) will get off their hands and offer a fix.

To charge X for something that does not work as advertised and not work quickly for a fix is just not right.

 

I will do that Brian however looking at the sites that sell the adapters it would appear that this is a problem among almost every major car maker.
Still,....for 100K+ you'd think everything would work flawlessly.

 

PCNA should offer a replacement cable, pure and simple. The adapter adds bulk in an already tight fit for some devices.

It's true that it was Apple who changed the pinout but i would be surprised if the car manufacturers were not notified long ago. It does not take that long to design /manufacture a simple cable. Heck, I could do it in less than 1 month.

 

This is a problem that affects many car companies. The good thing is that the problem is well-known and the solution is rather simple & cheap (some of those adappters cost around $20 even at retail price.)

When my wife bought her Mercedes a couple months ago, her dealer actually had those adapters and would give one to new car purchase customers for free (unfortunately they just ran out of stock at that weekend. I couldn't wait for them to mail me one, so I drove to Fry's Electronics and bought one myself.)

With best regards,

 

Don't forget the part where Apple charges a royalty (flat fee or %) for anything that plugs into that jack.

For developers, it's a real PITA, trust me.

 

The stupidity is this: with Dension out for over 2 years, and we have run into this issue over a year ago, and as part of the Apple Developer Group I reported the bug, and Apple and Dension worked to resolve by updating firmware on the iPod and Dension updated the main iPod cable, THIS known problem was resolved over a year ago!

Had Porsche simply relied on existing technology and suppliers to handle this, there would be no issue. But leave it to Porsche to try to reinvent and over-engineer the wheel. There goes the neighborhood.

 

Update: I got the Cablejive adapter and it works perfectly. As others have mentioned, that little storage compartment is not very big. My newest gen iPod Nano just fits in there with this adapter!
But at least it charges now.

 

Its NOT Porsche's fault entirely here. If you want to bitch about it, don't forget to call up Apple and yell at them as well for making such dumb move. After all, Apple is the one that changed the hardware interface at their end.

Sure you or I could design such a thing and build it in a few weeks.

But a car manufacturer has to set up the process to get them made in large quantity, integrated into the supply chain, tested and validated before production starts, have the manuals printed to match whatever the hardware will be, etc. So for a car manufacturer, it takes more than a month or two to get a new customer interface part into a production line.

I'm not sure how updating the firmware on the iPod can fix this... since, my understanding of it (correct me if I'm wrong) is that Apple dropped using the firewire 12v charging pins on the iPods going forward. Thats a physical interface change, not a software issue. Its also not something that can be fixed with just a cable swap unless you already have 5v DC handy in the cable. As the car system is 12v DC, I can imagine there being no 5v DC charge supply line anywhere around that would be usable by the cable that comes out of the center console. Now maybe there is a place on the PCM that one can tap into with the wiring that goes from the console iPod outlet to the PCM under the covers.. but if not, then a voltage regulation solution is needed to tap the 12vDC line and also supply a 5vDC line to the other pins that do the USB charging.

A simple new cable won't be enough, firewire charging is 12v (native to the car) where-as USB charging is 5v, so some circuitry will be needed and thus the wiring leading to the center tray will have to be updated.

Porsche says, right in the manual, that it guarantees these specific iPods will work and that it cannot say anything about models that come out beyond those. Apple change the docking interface pins it supports in the newest iPods, and that caused the issue. So spread the blame around.

All in all, its an unfortunate confluence of Apple changing its hardware interface support going forward at the same time that automobile makers were locking in their manufacturing for the cars.

 

What seems like it might work is to integrate a Scosche-like adapter into the dock connector on a new Porsche cable. The problem for 997's with the Universal Audio Adapter is the limited amount of space in the console compartment for an iPod with a Scosche Passport plugged into it and the Scosche plugged into the dock connector on the current Porsche cable. A new cable with built-in adapter could pass the 5v for the new ones, and the old cable could be used for the older ones.